Settlement Sunday #7

For this weeks Settlement Sunday I decided to choose something from the breakfast side of the book. There is a large section on everything and anything you can do with eggs. Some seem a little strange but the one I decided on looked really tasty, Eggs A La Columbus. It's basically an eggs cooked inside of a bell pepper. I'm guessing the Columbus part might be referencing the bell peppers as ships? Maybe, I don't know. I couldn't find any reference to this recipe anywhere online.

Here's how it went together.

I must say I was surprised how simple, quick, easy, and especially how good this dish was. It really is amazing. It has endless possibilities also, you could throw anything you like in there along with your eggs. This is definatly something I will be making more often.

Here are a few more recipes from the egg section.

I also just found that Google has a similar version of the Settlement Cook Book online free to view, you can go look through it and find some amazing recipes here.

Previous Settlement Sundays

1. Peanut Butter Cup Cakes

2. Dimpes Dampes

3. Mulligatawny Soup

4. Hot Bacon and Peanut Butter Sandwiches
5. Date Bars

6. Chop Suey

Pictures

Canon Ae-1

Here are some pictures from my canon ae-1. I started this roll while I was down in Seaside but half the pictures I took there were washed out when my camera accidentally opened as I was putting it in my bag. It left the rest of the pictures slightly washed out but still ok.

Here is a photo of the bathtub that was hanging out next to the deck at the house I stayed at. Tillamook head is hidden from view in the background making it seem like this could have been taken out in the grasslands somewhere.

Here are some pictures of stuff on the beach.

Then I finished off the roll down in the studio today.

I love taking pictures with this camera, and it seems like I mostly like holding it vertical. It can be a bit pricey though, an average roll to buy and have developed costs about $20 bucks. Then you have the gamble of them not coming out. That is one of the fun aspects of taking pictures with it though, taking a picture is a much more calculated approach then a digital camera. You have to make sure everything is right the first time because you cant review what you just shot to make adjustments. I think if anyone wants to become a better photographer is would be a good idea to spend some time with a manual film camera.

Vacation

Seaside

I spent a few days this last week relaxing by the beach down in Seaside Oregon. The weather was perfect in that it changed about every hour from strong winds and hail to sunny clear skies. If you timed it right you could get a good walk on the beach in the sun then head back to the house and sit in a nice cozy chair and watch the rain and hail pound the windows. The second morning I was there we woke up to snow which was pretty amazing on the beach. The snow and the color of the sky just as the sun was coming up was incredible, you felt as if you were walking in a painting.

Here are a few photos I clicked while I was there.

Here are all 875 photos and few minutes of video I took while I was there set to Blue Turning Grey by Clap Your Hands Say Yeah.

I left Seaside Thursday night a little bit before 7pm to head back up to Seattle. It had snowed that morning but mostly melted throughout the day. It was a little sketchy driving at times, going over the Astoria bridge was the most eeriest. It started snowing pretty heavy for a little bit after I got over the bridge and there was a lot of snow on the road at times but after a few miles the snow let up and the roads were dry all the way until Olympia which was a huge mess. The freeway was covered in snow and ice, there was a line of trucks about three miles long headed south all stopped and putting on chains. It was pretty slow going for a few miles but the closer I got to Seattle the better it got. It took me about 4 hours to get home, which is about an hour faster then it took me this summer when I drove back up from Astoria with all the traffic. It will probably be a drive I'll remember for a long time. Driving on the 101 was almost dreamy with snow covered trees on both sides reflecting the headlights of my truck causing everything to become illuminated. Its always great to get away and have a little adventure every once and a while.

Settlement Sunday #6

This weeks Settlement Sunday is a classic American-Chinese dish Chop Suey. It is basically the fruit cake of Chinese food where the chef just brushes everything left over off of the counter and cooks it up. It's simple, cheap, and also pretty tasty and fulfilling.

This dish is pretty great. I doubled the amount of Chinese Sauce though, 1 tablespoon just doesn't make it Chinesey enough for me. Also if you just add some noodles you have some Chow Mein. Overall a good quick simple dish.

Also as you might tell from the video I'm mostly just playing around trying different stop motion techniques. Because of that I don't really have a good idea of just how long it takes to prepare this recipe. It took me an hour to cut up every thing but it will probably take you less time seeing how you're not cutting one slice then taking a picture over and over again. I've always like stop motion and being able to try different things each week is pretty fun.

I'll be eating this for a while.

Previous Settlement Sundays

1. Peanut Butter Cup Cakes

2. Dimpes Dampes

3. Mulligatawny Soup

4. Hot Bacon and Peanut Butter Sandwiches
5. Date Bars

Photos

Non-Sign II Photos

The photos I took of Non-Sign II have sort of been plastered all over the web. I never really expected them to be shared so much as when I took them they were just sort of quick hurried shots I took hand-held walking around the piece. They have been shared on countless blogs and online magazines and I have also been contacted by a few magazines that wanted to publish a few in the articles they are doing on the sculpture. This isn't the first time some of my photos have been published but this is the most popular some of my photos have been.

These are the Magazines that my photos have been or will be published in.

Creative Review
Seattle Magazine
Azure
Clear
Geez

These are just a few of the online magazines and blogs that have used my photos. There are hundreds more but this is all I really wanted to go through. If you type in Non-Sign II into google and look at the images you will see all my photos linking to all the different sites.

Coastline Journal
Yslandia
Digital Transfer
Spanaki
Ruby Boutique
Cube Me
Co.Design
Today and Tomorrow
Unurth Street Art
Design Boom
The Sly Oyster
Architechnophilia
We Heart
Take Part
Green Diary
Imaginary Foundation
Base Now
Phaidon
Character Approved
We Waste Time
Texture Culture
Violence Visual
Wine and Bowties
Who's Next Blog
Urban Taster
Magical Urbanism
and on, and on, and on.

It's nice to have so much attention and interest in the sculpture and right now my photos are really the only ones of the piece out there. I still want to go and photograph this piece more and also get some night shots. The sculpture also changes a lot with what the sky is like behind it and I would like to get a few shots showing a range from clear to what I have already.

Thanks to those who shared my photos, a special thanks to those who acknowledged me as the source somewhere, and a extra special thanks to the few who actually paid me something to use them.

Uwajimystery #19

Sedutive Monkey Cookies

This weeks Uwajimystery is Zooland Printed Biscuits. Or what I like to call them, Seductive Monkey Cookies. Why? Well look.

Look at that come hither look. That monkeys eyes are saying "Heeey, you want some... cookies?"

You know you do. Tiger.

It even gives you a little game to play on the back. I'd bet if you name was on the left there you would be drawing a beeline up to that Monkey. I don't blame you, how could you resist.

The biscuits themselves are just as described, printed. The animals you have are hippo, leopard, bear, rabbit, monkey, camel, fox, racoon, parrot, cat, panda, rhinoceros, koala, tiger, dog, vulture, alligator, elephant, and rat. Mmmm, rat.

I would have to say that the panda is my favorite. Only because he seems to be the only one who knows what's coming to him.

They taste similar to Animal Crackers. Not as good as the real thing, but close. The only thing they have going for 'em is that I can't remember when Animal Crackers ever turned me on.

Previous Uwajimysteries

1. Collon 

2. Grass Jelly Drink

3. Peanuts With Soup

4. Pocari Sweat

5. Super Titi

6. Fish Sausage

7. Dog Poop

8. Cheese Pie

9. Cheetos

10. Rice and Peanut's Drink

11. Kit Kat

12. Boss First Class

13. Tako Chips

14. Durrian Chips

15. Durrian Flavor Wafer

16. Green Tea Aero

17. Big Popcorn

18. All Purpose Sauce

Settlement Sunday #5.5

More Valentines Recipes

I thought I would share some more recipes for you from the Settlement cook book that could possibly be used for Valentines day. I mentioned a recipe for chocolate balls and sausage in the last post and I want to share the recipe rather then just having the mention of it dangling out there.

As you can see there are two recipes for Chocolate balls.

You could either have date sausage or chocolate sausage, or just have both. The recipe for chocolate sausage is also the same recipe if you want to make chocolate poop.

Then you can finish it off with some nut creams.

Most of these recipes have really nothing to do with Valentines day, except if you're 12 I suppose. Nonetheless they would be some good sweets to make for someone you know that is sweet. If you want to go big though you should prepare the entire St. Valentines Day menu.

Settlement Sunday #5

This weeks Settlement Sunday I decided to find something Valentines themed to do. There was not much to choose from that had any sort of connection to love romance or the like. I basically had three options that I could fine, Chocolate Balls. Chocolate Sausage, and Date Bars. So I went with Date Bars.

I usually don't like nuts in many of my sweets but it works well in these. The powered sugar is also key as the nuts and dates themselves are not all that sweet even with the cup of sugar. The bars are fairly dense and moist and you get a good combination of the nuts and dates coming through in the taste. I would give this recipe an B+, meaning there pretty good, but not great.

Previous Settlement Sundays

1. Peanut Butter Cup Cakes

2. Dimpes Dampes

3. Mulligatawny Soup

4. Hot Bacon and Peanut Butter Sandwiches

200

200th Post

Well this is my 200th post on here in a little over a year. I though I would share a little bit of data from Google Analytics about my blog.

Here is a screen shot of the number of hits for each day for the last year. As well as the number of visitors.

Here are the countries it has been viewed in.

The top 5 countries are:
1. United States
2. Canada
3. United Kingdom
4. Australia
5. Vietnam

In the US it has been viewed in 29 states.

The top 5 States are:

1. Washington
2. California
3. Oregon
4. New York
5. Texas

In Washington it has been viewed in 39 Cities.

The top 5 are:

1. Seattle
2. Lynnwood
3. Mountlake Terrace
4. Bellevue
5. Sammamish

The top 5 referring sites to this blog in order are:

1. Blogger.com
2. Facebook.com
3. Ruminationread.blogspot.com
4. Flickr.com
5. Vimeo.com

The top 5 keywords bringing people to the site are: (not very exciting)

1. iangill@blogspot.com
2. autonomous life
3. ian gill@blogspot.com
4. ian gill blog uwajimaya
5. ian gill @blogspot.com
My favorite though is #47. collon numbing cream

The top 5 most popular posts are:

1. Giveaway #1
2. Giveaway #3
3. Uwajimystery #18
4. Giveaway #2
5. Uwajimystery #1

Here are a few other tidbits of information the google gives me that are really not necessary but still interesting nonetheless.

58.40% of you use Firefox
81.81% of you use Windows
47.79% of you use a combo of Firefox and Windows
50.70% of you have 24-bit screen color
43.92% of you have a screen resolution of 1680x1050
23.04% of you are using flash version 10.0 r32
16.70% of you are not wearing pants while reading a post
91.28% of you have java support
95.26% of you have use en-us as your language
75.08% of you are returning visitors
28.93% of you picked your nose while on the site
10.05% of you wiped it under your desk
46.61% of you use comcast as your service provider
74.60% of you are using high speed cable
00.81% of you view this site on your iphone
00.65% of you when viewing this site on your phone have t-mobile
75.83% of you probably did not read this

That's about all there is. I don't check the data for this site all that often, mostly because it's usually not that interesting. Looking through all of it was pretty fun though to see what is most popular and who is reading it. Obviously you people like the giveaways and the uwajimysteries so I will try and keep those coming. I think for my next 200 posts I should set up some sort of goal like reaching all 50 states or something. Anyway, it you are one of the 462 people who have stopped by this site in the last year thanks for reading.

Pictures

Wawona and More

Here are some picture I took last week of some more of the pieces of the Wawona as well as some other random picture.

There is a before and after shot of the planking when we pressure washed it to get all the dirt and paint off.

Some of the wood has some really great color to it, in one spot we could also see where some sort of repair had been made.

I also had my Canon Ae-1 with me taking some pictures. I sort of have an ongoing series of documenting the transition of the kitchen space using my ae-1 and then taping the pictures up so you can see all the different projects have been worked on in that space. I'll try and remember to get some pictures of those as well. If you look hard in this first picture you can see one of those pictures taped up on the hood vent.

These are some of the larger frame sections before we took them out and cleaned them up.

Some of the planking stacked up.

This scooter gets moved around a lot in the space, it was left by a precious user of the space and were not really sure what to do with it.
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Then there are just other random shots.

Then there are other random shots that have nothing to do with the Wawona, there mostly of my desk from when I was just trying to use up the rest of the roll.

That's about all for now.

Throwback #1

Sawn Fork

I'm going to start a new regular post called Throwback. It will be where I share pictures of some of my works that I had made long ago but never really shared it. Most of these will be from when I was a student and will be of certain assignments or projects I had worked on in the past. There are a lot of things that I don't even have pictures of so this will be a good way for me to actually go through some of my stuff and document it along the way.

For this first post I think it's only right that I share the first thing that I actually made back in 2005. The first assignment in my metals studio class, which was my first art class, was to take an everyday item and change and manipulate it somehow. I chose to take a fork and then freehand draw an intertwining pattern that the forks made. So here is the first piece I ever made. I don't think I have any other pictures of this online anywhere.

It was sawn out of a single piece of copper sheet then the brass handle was cut to match and riveted on. It's about 8 inches tall. I think the assignment was for us to utilize skills such as sawing, piercing, riveting, and then have a texture and patina. The patina and texture on the fork is one that I came up with myself and is super simple, but I'm not sharing. I think I got an A on the assignment.

This piece mostly lives in an envelope filed away in a cabinet and I'm comfortable with that right now. Eventually I'll probably frame it or something. Or, if I ever become famous I'll probably sell it on ebay and then take the money and retire.

Uwajimystery #18

All Purpose Sauce

This weeks Uwajimystery is All Purpose Sauce, it's good for everything! Here are just a quick few things it's good for: Savory Dip, Toast Spread, Non-dairy creamer, Dishwasher soap, Dog Treat, Window Cleaner, Hand Soap, Silver Polish, Toothpaste, Toilet Bowl Cleaner, Refreshing Drink, Nail Polish Remover, Oil Additive, Washer Fluid, Improves Gas Mileage, Gopher Repellent, Gets rid of fleas and ticks, Marital Aid, Drain Cleaner, Hair Removal, Paint Stripper, Floor Wax, Bandages, Yeast, Stain Remover, Stain Builder, Teeth Whitening, Shaving Cream, Laxative, Car Wax, Plant Food, Cake Frosting, Wood Preservative, Shampoo, Paint, Sugar Substitute, Aspirin, Carpet Cleaner, Propane Fuel, Book mark, Body Paint, Wart Remover, Modeling Clay, Enema, Insect Repellent, Body Wax, Bubble Bath, and well, Everything.

The sauce itself is mostly bread, sugar, and some spices. I guess it goes good with everything because it doesn't really taste like anything. Mang Tomas should focus on more specialty sauces rather then creating a be all end all sauce that will cover everything under the sun. It does have the selling factor of being an all purpose sauce though, keeping you from having to think what sauce will go good with what. Then if you are having steak and salad you don't need to buy both a steak sauce and salad dressing, just pick up some all purpose sauce to cover all your bases. Maybe Mang Tomas is just to far ahead of his time, I don't think that we as a society are ready for the answer to all of our sauce prayers at this moment in time. It's a good thing that bottles of All Purpose Sauce have enough salt and preservatives to make them last the eons until we are ready.

Previous Uwajimysteries

1. Collon 

2. Grass Jelly Drink

3. Peanuts With Soup

4. Pocari Sweat

5. Super Titi

6. Fish Sausage

7. Dog Poop

8. Cheese Pie

9. Cheetos

10. Rice and Peanut's Drink

11. Kit Kat

12. Boss First Class

13. Tako Chips

14. Durrian Chips

15. Durrian Flavor Wafer

16. Green Tea Aero

17. Big Popcorn

More Of What I'm Up To

More Wawona Stuff

Just when I thought I was done with taking apart the Wawona, there is more of this.

Holy crap this wood is heavy, the forklift could only get it about half way up then we had to improvise. I think the music is fitting.

What I'm Up To

Squares

I just started a new project with John Grade in which we will make two more pieces in the same style as Fold. It pretty much means making thousands of squares. In this manner.

It's simple work, it's nice when you've been doing it for a while and you just get into a grove where your hands are just on auto pilot and your mind drifts off into daydreams. The song in the video is actually my favorite song to daydream to, I don't know why but it always brings me to nice peaceful places. The song is Nostalghia by François Couturier.

Here's a little game, the video is actually on a loop, try and guess how many sections I actually put together.

Watch This

In A Perfect World

Now wouldn't it be great if like legos you could take apart your car and turn it into a brick making machine?

It would be great if there was a standard set of motors, gears, hose connections, and just other general mechanical compatibility between all things. It would make life so much simpler if every company didn't have their own specific way of building things. It can be done, it's was done with batteries, well at least before cell phones, camera, and laptops came around and everything went to hell. Having your own proprietary components inevitably leads to greater profits for a company because when you need something for that item you have to go back to them and pay what they charge because no one else makes it but them. The "lego" thinking means every piece can be used for a multitude of different functions and configurations. Having a standard set of blueprints labeling what component you need enables you to go out and find a part from any source to fill that need. Like a lego construction diagram people just need to know what pieces they need and how to put them together. The reason this will probably not succeed though, which is sad, is because it makes too much sense and not enough cents. Because, as we all know, cents trumps sense, always.

Uwajimystery #17

Big Popcorn

I've just started working again down next to Uwajimaya so the Uwajimystery posts will probably start becoming more frequent again.

This weeks Uwajimystery, BIG POPCORN!

Now, your probably saying to yourself "But Ian, I'm still getting use to eating regular size popcorn". Well that's to damn bad because BIG POPCORN is here!

How big is it you ask?

100% BIG, that's how BIG.

What's is BIG POPCORN you ask?

I'm not really sure. There's yellow and orange insect larva looking things.

Now I'm sure you're wondering if BIG POPCORN's BIGNESS also means it's BIG on nutrition. Well have a look for yourself.

I think this speaks for itself. Giving out their number proves they have nothing to hide.

Would this guy steer you wrong?

When has corn ever disappointed you?

BIG POOPCORN in all its BIGNESS.

Is BIG POPCORN good? Sort of, if your able to handle it's size and it's uncanny resemblance to decaying molars, then sure I would give BIG POPCORN a try.